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Saturday I got a haircut. I had been letting my hair grow out a bit. It had been a few years since I'd let it go long for a couple months.

Presently at work, I've only been having to deal with a handful of people on any regular basis, so the clean cut office thing wasn't really an issue. Seemed like a good time to play around and do a more artist type thing. However, there are some changes going on at work, depending on how things work out, possibly even good, at the worst, probably no worse than ok. In anycase-- changes, so the return of office-hair me.

On that work change front, right now it's just org boxes on a page. The structure looks sound, but I've been in that building long enough to know that boxes on a page are only as good as the drive of the people that they fill them with and the backing of the people that live on the chart in the boxes above those people. In an organization of the size of the one that employs me, change has a way of being naturally countered no matter how positive it's direction. Like water, the organization will seek it's historical level unless the change agents are active and persistent. So we'll see in a few months how it sorts out.

» On non-work fronts. Still very impressed by Twitter. Although I've participated infrequently in Tweetups in the area, the whole Tweetup concept is fascinating to study. Twitter is managing to take the network effects of the internet into realspace in a way that although concentrated in the early adopters right now, may very well break through to the mainstream soon. The internet via Twitter seems poised to begin organizing real world activity in a meaningful way soon.

That might be a good thing too, in the personal if not theoretical sense. Very good friends of mine that hold a majority stake in my evening socialization may be moving out of the area soon. If that happens I may very well need to take more advantage of the internet's new found ease at organizing realspace interaction :)

» Really enjoyed the Caprica, pilot. There is a core concept at the center of the episode that deals with if something appears for all intents and purposes to be the thing it is, is that thing then in fact the thing it is. Or put differently, if it talks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck, is it not in fact a duck. One character argues this point in the affirmative, the other in the negative, and I find it fascinating how it's made me look at people and their behavior from the Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) point of view, when in fact I think I would be more closely aligned with Joseph Adams.

I do not believe things are what they are because of the way they appear or act. Those are important aspects, but there are other concepts much more ephemeral and based in words, interpretation, and an understanding of motive and drive that are just as important to a thing's definition than what can be gleaned from it's physical manifestations. Yet I still find Stoltz character's argument compelling and hope the series turns out to be just as probing as this first episode installment.

Here's a scene where the two lead character's discuss the authenticity of a computer recreation of one of their daughters.

But what if they could come back

There's an axiom in my business, "A difference that makes no difference, is no difference."
She looks like Zoe, she talks like Zoe, she thinks like Zoe, remembers all the events of her childhood, has all the same likes, dislikes, flaws, strengths, all of it. Who's to say her soul wasn't copied, too?

>> >You can't copy a soul.

And you would know that how? Hmm? How can you prove or disprove that idea?

>>>Look, I know what I know, okay? And I know you can't copy a person.

I know that she's my daughter. I know that she is my daughter, and I know it in the only place
that matters. Here. The only difference between her and the Zoe that lived in this house is just that.
She lived in this house instead of a virtual world. I want to bring her here. Joseph, I want her to live
in this world once more. I want to hold her in my arms, and I want to kiss her, and I want her to feel
the sun shine on her face. I want her to see the flowers at the side of the road, Joseph.

» Ubuntu came out with version 9 of it's OS and it also came out with the netbook book edition of the same. The netbook edition will run from a flash drive there are some instructions on how to do that here. I have downloaded the image and I think I may run up to Meijer to get a 2Gb stick to install it on and test it out (you could do it on a 1GB stick but as I mentioned last week, those are harder to come by). I may get some gummy bears too, while I'm at it.

» I need to stop liking shows, because apparently when I like a show, they get cancelled. dollhouse, Sarah Conner Chronicles
In that spirit, let me say that I hate ;) Better Off Ted.

» I'd love to see Pushing Daisies' Brian Fuller do a new Star Trek TV Series. I'm guessing they'll do a couple more movies before they pull the trigger on a new TV show though. I'm guessing that once the Live Action Star Wars show hits, they won't be able to resist fielding a Star Trek TV Show.

White gloves. They should have kept the white gloves. Besides straying too far from the costume by ditching them, you also lose something in metaphor. I'm really bummed by the lack of white gloves.

Abin Sur looking more alien. A friend of mine suggested that making him look more alien helps distinguish him from Sinestro and makes it less confusing that they are not of the same species. Eh, I don't think it's a big deal really if someone gets a little confused by that.

Sinestro in the Yellow Lantern Corp Costume. Without seeing the movie, this and the other costume touches make it look like the film is borrowing heavily from current continuity. Not sure if that's going to work well in a stand alone film.

Sigh, I really liked New Frontier. Here's hoping that despite the overly contemporary visuals that this cartoon doesn't disappoint.

» Boks is an Adobe Air app that makes creating CSS grid configurations easy. It seems a little confusing at first, but if you watch their demo videos it's really easy to use.

» Some really nice Nightwing as Batman costume designs over at Project Rooftop. I like the one below. But there are about a dozen others.

» Want to talk with someone? Omegle.com is a chat server for talking to completely random strangers. You go to the site, you hit a button, and you are talking with a completely random stranger. And odd idea really.

» Bumptop is a really cool "replacement" for your Windows desktop (I put replacement in quotes because it doesn't really replace it so much as it runs ontop of it.) Take a look at the video on this Engadget article. Here's an article about it on Mashable too.

I've been using it for a week. and I like it. It's sort of a novelty, but it there are somethings about it that just make working with your files more natural too.

» Want to make long articles on the web easier to read? Try Readability. It is a bookmarklet that you save and when you are on a web page, you click it and it represents the page in a very clean stripped down simplified way. Also great to use before coping and pasting large chunks of a web page too.

According to the article Zan and Jayna will also be available on Mattycollector.com but you can only get gleek with them at the San Diego Comic Con. You got to have gleek. Sigh, this is going to be a tough set to get I bet (for any reasonably priced ammount)

Here's my plan. I want to make a few collections of photos and text to play in the frame. I figure the best way to do this is to Make my slides in Open Office Impress and export to JPEGS. Since the native resolution of the monitor is only 480x234. I also resized my JPEGs for that resolution. That gives me a JPEG of a file size between 15K and 25K. Tiny little files.

Today I went looking for a few SD cards for the frame. Figuring the best way to store my little shows would be on individual cards I could pop in and out as needed. By my math I should be able to fit 131,072 25K Jpegs on a 256 Meg card. That should be more than I need, but i figure I'm unlikely to find a card smaller than that so I hit a couple stores.

I was surprised to discover that 2Gb is the new bottom end in USB sticks and SD cards. (Sure a couple stores still had some 1Gb ones, but those were basically the same price as 2Gb) 2Gb is enough memory for 1,048,576 at the resolution of my picture frame. A million slides is just a little bit bigger than the number of slides I was planing on buying.

Basically in this case, a 2Gb card is like buying a Hummer to take your trash out to the curb. it's a little over kill. And while the 2Gb cards can be had for $8 or so on average. Even, 256 megs is overkill for my purposes.

If 2Gb=$8, can't I get a 256 meg card for $1 then? seems like I should be able too, but alas, 2 Gb appears to be the new small at $8, and it does not look like my search for a small trivial priced SD card I can buy a stack of will be accomplished (although I may try a dollar store next week.).

» vattoz.com. Search for Music, add to playlist, shuffle or straight play!. Even share your playlist with others with a link. Crazy slick. Takes fizy.com to the next level and may become one of my new favorite services.

• @chadvw Mission Specialist Lisa is only Woman up here. She's all business, And she's only 5'8". Buzz and Tom are former AF, I'm probably ok.
about 4pm (This was in reference to chadvw suggesting that I was likely to get "face raped")

Sat, 25 May 2013 07:57:39 -0700
I?m not a fan of the new Flickr redesign. It?s not even that I don?t like the visual look of it.My primary beef is: without warning they completely changed the service for paying customers. I?ve payed for a Pro account for years under the assumption that paying for a service would provide a little more reliability. Flickr has shown that not to be the case, so I?m planning to use it far less frequently and probably far differently than the personal photo site of record I have been using it as. (I?m also not pleased with their likely upcoming attention/advertising model)

I was able to put all my photos into one Set and download the full size images using a free service called flickandshare.com, so I have everything safely out of the service now. Likely I will eventually set up my own simple photo gallery (and give these photos a new home) on my website at chris-karath.com. Hosting your own services and codes seem to be the most reliable method for content that you want around for years to come.

Photos that are here now, will probably continue to be here, Yahoo willing, into the future.

Since Flickr has shown itself to be of unpredictable stability, and it appears to be transforming into more a social network than a photo service, I?ll probably plan on treating it as such. If you subscribe to my account for the action figures, I?ll probably from time to time still post a picture or two of those here with links back to my own site where I?ll likely start posting more photos.

If you follow for my personal photos, following me on Twitter or my personal blog atchris-karath.com will probably be your best bet. --- Best wishes, Chris.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
I've never actually taken the full tour of the Museum. It was free today, so we went through it. It's nicely done for it's sort of thing.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
Those light poles to the shore should be dry land

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:01 -0700
Stairways to nowhere. Grand Rapids.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:00 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:59 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:58 -0700
Grand Rapids Art Museum. This display is by a new guy who just joined our team at work.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:49:01 -0700

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:17:53 -0700
Both these guys have contributed a lot to comics. I'm not implying anything with the choice of pose. I figure in classic comic parlance though, these two comic heroes would be obligated to fight before teaming up to defeat some great evil.

Recent Blog Comments

Thread: p1825 Post by Jolloway2013-02-23 12:23:49 Hi Cris and other people who view this sight,
I just started a blog site jolloway.co.uk and I wonderd if anyone can give me any tips on blogging. I am curently using a site called word press to host me blog. I start around about a month ago and I\'m really struggling with it and if you do reply I\'m only 11 and found this sight by a photo in google Images.
-Josh
P.S. I love the background XP

Thread: p1706 Post by Chris2012-10-27 13:29:47 Fortunately, I resisted the DC/Master Bundles as they were pretty much only bundled with basic figures I already had. Had they been bundled with more unique DC figures, I might have alot more Masters figures at this point ;)

Thread: p1706 Post by De2012-10-27 13:06:27 I almost bit on Masters of the Universe when they were being bundled with DC Universe figures in the two-packs. I\'ve also liked the blending of sci-fi and fantasy but a lad only has so much room :-)

Thread: p1674 Post by T. Bass2012-10-24 20:55:50 Hi Chris:
Like you, I bought and just received an ONDA V701. Mine took 32 days (!) to arrive from China (bought from gadgetdealer.com... avoid like plague), and the box was beat to hell, but it seems to work fine ....with one exception.
That said, I like the tablet thus far, but a couple of things aren\'t flying right. One, it was advertised as having Adobe Flash ver. 11.1, but instead, mine came with 10.2. Yours? Not sure this matters, as Flash is going the way of the dodo-bird as far as Android goes.
My only real complaint thus far, and that despite trying everything I could find online, I cannot get NetFlix to work. This was/is one of the main reasons I bought it, as they advertised that it \"works with NetFlix\". I don\'t know whether it\'s the tablet, or the app that is the problem, but nonetheless, no love from NetFlix at this point.
I don\'t know if you are subscribed to Netflix, but if you are, I sure would like to know if it works for you on your V701, and if so, how did you get it going, and what settings are you\'re using to make it work? Appreciate hearing from you.
Best,
T. Bass
Applegate, Oregon

Thread: p1557 Post by davy2012-08-24 17:58:58 i kind of agree with you, and i\'m sure bale had the best intentions but the whole media circus at times is disturbing.
but if to had to pick on whether bale should have visited or not i\'d rather he visit for the sole reason that if he made any of the survivors feel good,even if it was only for the briefest moments, then it was worth it.
the victims medical and emotonals needs should be put first and if bale\'s visit helped any of them emotionally then i\'m glad